Hi, I am looking to transition to Product Management from SWE role. I have 5 years of SWE experience. Any advice on how I can make the transition? I am currently working as a front-end engineer at an enterprise software company; I have experience leading a dev team as well as managing backlogs, sprints, releases, and interfacing with senior executives (stake holders). My goals is to be working as a product manager sometime in the future. Preferably, 3 years from now... Note: I've had this conversation with my manager in the context of growth and career goals, but it's going no where...
I am interested to know as well
What is your situation like? Could you share your experience?
At Amazon if you ace your leadership principals, get the coding requirements down well, but are meh at writing code you will get recommended for a product management role.
Thanks. Should I apply for front-end dev role and request to be recommended for product management? Or should i just apply to product management role?
In the long run, you will be happier as SWE else you will be at mercy of SWE. Product is for people who cannot be SWE.
Fair point. However, I feel like product management skill sets are more universally transferable to other companies in tech. Whereas, in SWE roles are defined and to certain extent limited by experiences in specific tech stack.
Get to know people on the product team. Ask to shadow their work including user interviews, and volunteer to take some stuff off their plate. It'll give you a taste for PM, whether you like it, and also give you unofficial experience. I write about PM here: productlessons.substack.com - might be helpful to you.
If you have an aptitude to create , communicate a vision. Can influence decisions, understand big picture , know enough technology you will enjoy being a pm.. just keep in mind that as you climb the ladder you will have 10 percent of head count for a similar role in engg... i dont like coding , but am a pretty decent coder and made a switch. No regrets
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Thanks for the input. I've updated my post. Let me know if there are specific info you are looking for that may be helpful which I may have missed.